An investigation has unearthed an Indonesian monkey torture ring that cruelly tortured and killed baby macaques while producing customised films for clients in the US, the UK, and other nations. After a year-long investigation, the BBC has revealed a global network of cruel monkey torturers that operates from Indonesia to the United States.
The BBC discovered that hundreds of clients from the US, the UK, and other countries pay Indonesians to murder and torture infant long-tailed macaques on camera. According to reports, the network started on YouTube before moving to secret groups on the Telegram app.
When BBC journalists went undercover in one of these Telegram torture groups, they learned that the members of those organisations concoct monkey torture schemes and hire others to execute them.
The purpose is to produce custom videos that show young long-tailed macaques being mistreated, slaughtered, and subjected to various other atrocities.
According to the BBC, at least 20 people are currently being probed. Two of the main suspects under investigation by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are among them. The BBC found the US distributors and customers and the Indonesian executors.
One suspect has been identified as Stacey Storey, a 40-year-old woman known in the community as “Sadistic.” The other suspect is a monkey torture ringleader known solely as “Mr. Ape,” whose his true identity has been withheld out of concern for safety reasons.
In a BBC interview, “Mr. Ape” admitted to ordering “extremely brutal” movies and confessed to slaughtering at least four monkeys and torturing many more.
Storey, from the US state of Alabama, was involved in a torture group as recently as early June. DHS personnel took her phone. Around 100 torture recordings were discovered, along with proof that Storey paid for some of the most shocking videos the group ever made.
Two suspects in a monkey torture ring in Indonesia have been detained and prosecuted by the police.
Indicted of selling a protected species and torturing animals, Asep Yadi Nurul Hikmah received a three-year prison sentence. The maximum sentence in Indonesia for animal abuse is eight months in prison, which M. Ajis Rasjana received.
According to the BBC, which claimed to have discovered multiple groups sharing such violent information, the torture films are reportedly still accessible on Telegram and Facebook. There are more than 1,000 people in some of these monkey torture groups.
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